Local resource center returns to area schools

By Katie Collins Brush News-Tribune Staff Writer

Posted:
11/06/2012 04:00:00 PM MST

Seventh graders at BMS practice making good decisions and establishing sexual boundaries using a 'mock' exercise during a spring lecture presented by Jan Loesch of A Caring Pregnancy Resource Center. Loesch has returned this fall to area schools to enlighten a new crop of students and will take her program to middle schools in Brush, Fort Morgan, Yuma and Holyoke this fall and into the spring of 2013. (Katie Collins/News-Tribune)

As they get back into the regiment of the fall semester, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students at county middle schools are once again being exposed to some harsh facts relating to life choices and personal consequences from Jan Loesch of the local Caring Pregnancy Resource Center which serves as a United Way of Morgan County agency. The Center provides health and sex education throughout northeastern Colorado, covering four high schools and middle schools in three counties.The Center is also committed to providing this service free of charge as workers there donate their time and materials to local schools. Jan Loesch of the Caring Pregnancy Resource Center in Brush began this year’s tour of schools last week at the Brush Middle School, providing lessons on establishing healthy communication in relationships, the steps of intimacy, abstinence, establishing sexual boundaries and the facts on sexually transmitted diseases during a series of two-day-long program where Loesch spoke openly, frankly and honestly to students entering that age when personal decisions can herald life-long consequences.“This is a time in your life that you can not NOT ask the hard questions,” Loesch said when outlining how open communication should be an initial and important aspect of relationships for all ages during her stops last spring.

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Questions such as ‘Are you sexually active’ and ‘Do you have an STD (sexually transmitted disease)’ may take courage, but must be asked.During classes this past spring, seventh graders were given cups of liquid during an exercise. Some students received cups full of liquid, and others had empty cups. Loesch had students imagine they had arrived at a parentless party where alcohol was made available, affecting decision making and those with liquid in their cups had sexual encounters. Those students exchanged liquids with random classmates and in the end, a few cups had turned bright pink. “Those of you who have pink liquid have just received a gift at the party,” noted Loesch. “The gift that keeps on giving…an STD”. Abstinence didn’t seem like a tough decision to make for students after that lesson. According to Loesch, one in five sexually active Americans have a viral STD and one in four have a bacterial STD. Loesch also related to the various classes that there are over 28 STDs reported in 2012 and the number of discovered STDs has risen from 23 since 2011. The Human Pappilomavirus (HPV) was also discussed and includes a group of 30 different types of viruses transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. About 20 million people in the U.S. are already affected with the virus and most don’t know it. According to Loesch, soon nearly half of sexually active adults in America will have HPV and 80 percent of college co-eds have contracted the virus, which can lead to cervical cancer. In Morgan County, the bacterial STD Chlamydia is the number one contracted disease of its type. Chlamydia can result in infertility or an inability to have children in both men and women and can be transmitted during vaginal, anal and oral sex. It is often known as the ‘silent disease’ as it comes with little or no symptoms and is frequently undiagnosed or not treated until its too late. As Loesch related to the many students who she encountered, the surest way to avoid pregnancy, an infection with a sexually transmitted disease and even a regretful broken heart is to practice sexual abstinence while unmarried. Condoms, she related, do not provide complete protection from any STD.

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